


Trial By Fire

by LivefromG25



Series: Blow Me... A Kiss [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: M/M, Tumblr Promt Fill, Two tired lil babas, and I am not talking about the kids, and noone asked for, that I wasnt prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 21:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18533554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LivefromG25/pseuds/LivefromG25
Summary: Tumblr Kiss Fic Promt 23: Exhausted Parent Kiss.Piggybacked off the wonderful prompt fill by RubyIntyale.





	Trial By Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RubyIntyale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyIntyale/gifts), [ihighlydoubtthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ihighlydoubtthat/gifts).



I’m already toeing my shoes off as I click the door shut with my ass, dreaming about the longest, hottest shower a person could take.

I’ve never felt such relief to be home. An impromptu can’t-afford-to-miss-it meeting halfway across the country had me out on the red eye this morning - yesterday morning? - leaving a “don’t worry, I got this” Tim on babysitting duty. I hated doing this when it was my weekend with them but my agent had let me know in no uncertain terms this was not something I could pass up on and Harper and Ford love spending time with him so… I did what I had to.

I roll my shoulders and twist my neck as I throw my stuff down in the hallway and start padding my way up the stairs.

Halfway up I hear a soft snuffling and instinct tells me it’s neither of the kids. Worry twists my gut as I bound up the rest of the stairs two at a time.

I find him in the bedroom with his back to me, one sleeve roughly wiping his face.

“Tim?”

He turns with a bright smile that is so far from reaching his eyes it might as well originate on another continent. His face is blotchy and red.

“Oh! Hey!” he exclaims, but his pitch is too high and it does nothing to ease my anxiety. “Welcome home!”

He moves in to hug me but I stop him with a strong hold on his shoulders. He looks at me quizzically as if I’m blind to the apples of the cheeks twitching under the strain of his false grin.

“What’s wrong, Tim? Did something happen? Are the kids OK?” I search his eyes for answers but it’s hard to see past the shimmer of the tears he is trying to hold back. His smile is stretched out, taut, his usually blush pink lips are chapped, red, bitten.

“They’re fine! Honestly!” his voice, ascending close to a register only dogs can hear, is reedy. “They’re both fast asleep, but we’re just glad to have you back and I am sure they will be delighted in the morning!”

His words feel desperate and cracked. I lead him over to the bed and we sit side by side. I suspect he thinks I didn’t notice the deep exhale behind me as we turned.

“Tim…”

He plays with the damp sleeve of his jumper, twisting it in his fingers, hiding his hand before pushing it back through the fabric. He does it again. A third time. A fourth. I watch him and wait for him to talk but he seems to be content to stretch out the silence like a blanket.

“Ti-”

I barely finish his name before he is headbutting my chest. I wrap an arm around his back and, as I pull him closer, feel his defensive wall come crashing down. Sobs tremble beneath me and I swallow down another wall of panic, knowing that even if I asked, he would be able to get his words out.

Before my mind can begin it’s spiral into the million scenarios that could have caused this, I focus on him, rubbing his back softly, mumbled words of comfort spilling from my lips into his curls.

Eventually, the sobs subside and his clinging hold on my jumper gives slightly. Within a heartbeat he has risen and rearranged himself on my lap so we are chest to chest, his face buried in the crook of my neck.

I can feel him damp and hot against my skin as his lips mouth apologies. With a last shuddering breath he sits up straight, one hand gripping my shoulder as the other wipes at his face.

“ _Fuck_ , sorry. Sorry.” he strokes his free hand down my chest, patting gently over my heart.  _His_  heart.

Keeping one arm locked around his waist, I wipe gently at a lone tear he missed before pushing his hair back from his face, his eyes closing as he leans into my touch.

“No need to be sorry baby. Want to tell me what has you like this, though?”

He nods gently, eyes still closed. His mouth tightens and I stroke across the shudder in his chin with my thumb before catching a fresh tear as it falls.

He blinks open and looks down at me. He breathes in deep and pushes the words past the constriction in his throat. They land breathlessly between us like jigsaw pieces.

_“I just wanted to be good.”_

His face crumples as he whimpers softly, but I can tell he isn’t finished so I don’t speak. Instead caressing every inch of him that I can.

“When you left, I thought I-, I believed that I would be okay, and they’d be okay and we’d have a great time and you’d come home and be-”, he scrubs again at his face with a frustrated growl, “you’d be  _proud_  of me. But then, they woke up and you were gone and I swear to god it was like an out of body experience, they were no longer your kids, they were…” he speeds up having found a temporary strength to harness, his hands flailing wildly. “They were fucking  _mean_ , Armie. All the time. They didn’t want breakfast, they didn’t want to be around me, I tried to take them to the zoo and Ford, he was OK because he was in the stroller or whatever, but Harper, dude, she fucking  _hates_  me, and she hated it and  _lions are stupid_ and every time I asked her to check something out, just trying to engage her, she would just look at me. Like she’d rather be anywhere else. And she just kept saying that she didn’t have to do anything I asked because ‘ _I’m not her daddy_ ’ and she’s right, I mean, she’s fucking right, who am I to tell her what to do anyway, but I tried to placate her and I took her to her favourite food place and she just refused to eat anything and then Ford started to get fussy too so we came home and they just ran about the place and wouldn’t stop screaming. I tried films, I tried games, I tried everything. Finally it was bedtime and fuck I know you’ll hate me but I was so glad to see 7pm roll around even though it took me until 11.30 to get both of them to stop jumping on the beds and fighting and getting up to play and just fucking  _sleep_  and, and, and,” The words jumble out of his mouth, his telltale lisp giving away how his mind is racing faster than he can speak. He starts sobbing again and gently thumps my chest, “And you’re fucking smiling, why are you smiling?”

“Sorry, sorry.” I shake my head, school my expression and place a warm hand over his. “OK no you’re right, you’re not their  _biological_ father. Which means you definitely do not need to put up with attitude like that. I will talk to Harper about that tomorrow. She knows better than to behave that way and I genuinely didn’t expect it with you. She  _loves_  you, Tim.” I stroke his face again and he leaves a soft kiss on the heel of my hand.

“But the rest of it, the general exhaustion? The desire to be the best you can be? The guilt of feeling not good enough? Baby, that  _is_ being a parent. You just made it through your first 24hrs of being their dad without me. So, I’m sorry for smiling, but I am just so fucking proud of you.”

His eyebrows knit together, his eyes still red and watery.

“What, so you don’t hate me? For not being good enough?”

Bringing my hand to the nape of his neck, I pull him forward until our foreheads are touching.

“Tim… They’re alive. That’s pretty much the only bar I was setting. Anything on top of that is a fucking win to me”

He huffs out a small, relieved sigh before his eyes flutter closed and he kisses me. Its wet and sticky and tastes of salt. Of survival.

I kiss him back, enjoying the heavy weight of him as he releases the tension he was holding. His lips slow until they’re barely moving and I can feel exhaustion tugging at his limbs. I break away and cradle his face, his lips still dancing on their own as he takes a couple of seconds to register.

I laugh as he gives thanks and apologies in equal measure and collect him up in my arms, twisting to place him flat on the sheets. He grips at me but it’s weak, the tidal wave of fatigue having crashed over him. I pull a blanket around him and press a soft kiss just below the fan of his lashes before getting up to take a shower.

As I glance once more at him, his hair a wild halo around his head, lips gently open as he softly snuffles his way to sleep, my heart swells in my chest. I don’t know how I got so lucky to find someone who wants to be the best they can for my children, who fits into my role like it’s their second skin and who’d do whatever it takes to accept everything my life brings them. And to wrap it all up in a package that looks the way he does, that ticks every box I have? I’m not sure  _luck_  even covers it.


End file.
